Comments on: Adjusted for inflation, Babe Ruth’s highest salary was $1.4 millionhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/
Baseball. Baseball. And then a bit more baseball.Mon, 19 Mar 2018 14:39:50 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/By: dangelo136http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-1024044
Mon, 18 Apr 2016 00:48:39 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-1024044People forget that GCA, was a WWI veteran who fought in Belleau Wood, one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Perhaps he crawled into the bottle because PTSD and the fact that alcoholism ran in his family. Remember, alcohol was part of the average American culture before the Volstead Act (Prohibition)
So just like you have to have your beer and your weed today, they had to have their shot of bourbon and whiskey back then.
]]>By: dinkydowhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467734
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:09:45 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467734I’m not sure what year it was but Ruth signed a $100,000 contract and when reporters asked him did he think he deserved to make more money than the president of the United States he famously answered: “I had a better year than he did.”
]]>By: jcmeyer10http://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467482
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:02:36 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467482My Dad and I were having this exact conversation in regards to a guy like Stephen Drew making 7 million a year.
]]>By: dubblelznhellhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467363
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 02:38:06 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467363So is the writer of this article making bank? Anything north of 100,000 is pretty damn good. I have yet to attain even half of that in a year…..lol. Yet…..
]]>By: Glennhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467336
Wed, 03 Apr 2013 01:39:43 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467336The media market then was not set up for multiple stars as it is today. Charles Lindbergh, Clara Bow, Rudolph Valentino, etc., could not exist today as they did back then. Ruth’s star power would be diminished in today’s media landscape. You can’t be larger than life in today’s story-a-minute atmosphere.
]]>By: normcashhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467084
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 19:06:58 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467084There was a fascinating article in 1946 in Fortune magazine that analyzed the business of baseball,
using the Yankees as the case study. Fortune posted it on its website last year. What was amazing
was how small a business it was, even by 1946 standards. There was no TV revenue and radio
revenue was tiny. Virtually all the Yankees revenue was generated at the turnstiles and through
concessions. The article said the Yankees expected to draw over 1,000,000 fans and pointed out
that few teams drew that well. These days, every team draws well over 1,000,000. And how many of
us oldsters can recall in the late 50s/early 60s when it was a staple of a radio broadcast for the announcers to tell us what job this or that player held in the off-season? Or consider the World Series
telecast of Don Larsen’s perfect game, which is available on DVD. Between-innings commercials
lasted 30 seconds and between half-innings at one point, NBC broadcast a public service announcement about home fire safety! Can you imagine? A game which was a small cottage industry is now a huge multi-billion dollar business. The fact the player salaries reflect that fact should surprise no one.
]]>By: pandebaileyhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467052
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 18:34:01 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467052Sorry, I don’t buy the whole premise of “$1.4 million based on inflation”. Where did that come from? That’s only 17 times Babe’s highest salary of $80K – most reports say we are 30 times 1927 dollars. Average car, gas and house prices ($1K, 15 cents and $7K) are now 30 times what they were in 1927, not 17x.

Try $2.4 million as a salary for Babe – still a bargain for greedy owners, but more accurate.

]]>By: historiophiliachttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-467019
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:39:43 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-467019Exactly, it’s like being mad at Einstein for wanting a cushy research position at Princeton and telling him if he doesn’t like it, he can teach math at PS 163.
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466926
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:37:39 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466926But it was only mostly dead then.
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466906
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:24:07 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466906Alcoholism is a disease. Move past that outdated thinking. That’s part of the problem.
]]>By: downinbunglelandhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466882
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:09:57 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466882Players today can thank Marvin Miller of the MLBPA and Andy Messersmith of the LA Dodgers for successfully challenging MLB’s “reserve clause” in player contracts that kept players bound to the team that signed them. This brought about the era of free agency. The reserve clause significantly depressed player salaries. Catfish Hunter was the first big name player to sign a free agent contract when he signed a five year deal with the Yankees for more than $3 million in 1974. That was an unheard of amount at the time; $100,000 per year would have been a rich contract.
]]>By: carbydrashhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466879
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:08:45 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466879“That’s over 4x what I made in 2012. I’m not rich, but I’m far from destitute.”

Yeah, but everyone can do what you do (probably). Very few people can play baseball at an elite level.

]]>By: bigharoldhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466855
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:50:28 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466855Yeah but he did get buckets of oats!

Besides, horses don’t have fingers so what are they going to do with dimes?

]]>By: yahmulehttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466852
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:47:25 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466852See, when almost anyone can perform a job, wages for that job are low. Jobs requiring highly specialized skills, such as professional athlete, tend to be compensated commensurate to their talents. This simple fact has always generated a certain degree of resentment and jealousy, even, apparently, for a bunch of dead guys.
]]>By: blacksableshttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466845
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:44:12 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466845They didn’t die of cancer, they died from drinking.
]]>By: yahmulehttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466829
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:34:40 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466829Babe Ruth saved baseball after the Black Sox scandal.
]]>By: kopyhttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466762
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:59:14 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466762In the National and American League, sure, but there were more leagues than those.
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466754
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:51:40 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466754Also, nice with the moralism on the drinking. Would you be so snarky if their money was eaten up by cancer, etc?
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466747
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:48:31 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466747But that was before baseball was dying.
]]>By: historiophiliachttp://mlb.nbcsports.com/2013/04/02/adjusted-for-inflation-babe-ruths-highest-salary-was-1-4-million/#comment-466743
Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:44:49 +0000http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/?p=375196#comment-466743And my point is: they didn’t have an easy fallback either — where they could just get a job that was safe and allow them to support their families well. My grandfather was a barber after playing (and during). They didn’t live large. Not everyone made that kind of money.

And that’s not even getting into whether they should have to live on $200K in today’s dollars when they were making more than that for their teams.